Career Challenge Management Techniques

Becoming a manager is a difficult transition for many. Being an individual contributor is one thing. Managing others is another. And embracing the latter doesn’t come naturally to people who were promoted precisely because they were exceptional at focusing on their own work. But there’s something even harder, from my perspective: When you become a manager, you do not stop being an individual contributor. You’re still accountable for outcomes. If the team misses, it’s on you. If something ships poorly, it’s on you. Your deliverable is the result and no longer just “the work.” That’s uncomfortable because the skill that made you successful as an individual contributor was CONTROL. You knew how to make things good, you knew how to fix them, you knew how to push something over the line. Now someone else is doing the work, and you’re still accountable. That tension, between giving up control while keeping accountability, is where many new managers tend to struggle. As I’ve learned from coaching conversations, many don’t let go because they tell themselves they’re being responsible. But often, they’re just afraid to let the outcome exist without their fingerprints on it. As one manager once told me, “You need to stop measuring your value by what you personally produce and start measuring your value by what your team can produce without you. Though that feels like loss at first, it isn’t." Your job is no longer to be the hero who saves the project. Your job is to build an environment where the project doesn’t need saving. If you’re in this transition, here are three practical steps to take that helped new managers I worked with: 1. Move from output accountability to standard accountability. Don’t be the person who fixes the final product. Be the person who defines what “good” means. Set clear non-negotiables. Create a quality bar. Review against standards, not against how you would have done it. 2. Use the 70% rule. If someone can do it 70% as well as you, delegate it. Spend your energy on the first 10-15% (direction, constraints) and the last 10-15% (final judgment). Let the team own the messy middle. 3. Separate maker time from manager time. Stop trying to context-switch all day, if possible. Protect deep-work blocks for individual contributor accountability. Cluster meetings and coaching into dedicated windows. None of this removes accountability: it just shifts where you apply it. From doing the work to designing the system that makes the work excellent. #managing #learning #leadership #control PS: I do like 2x2s... so, here is another one I use with managers. It is often very revealing to find out in which quadrant we spend most of our time at work.

The skills that make someone an exceptional individual contributor often become limitations in senior leadership. Consider Sarah (composite of many real examples): - Crushes every metric - Works longest hours - Knows every answer - Solves every problem personally - Team depends on her for everything Passed over for VP multiple times. Here's the pattern I've observed: High Performers Often: - Execute personally - Protect their expertise - Measure effort - Create dependency - Focus on tasks High Leaders Typically: - Execute through others - Share knowledge freely - Measure outcomes - Create capability - Focus on people The coaching insight we shared that changed everything for Sarah's trajectory: "What if you stopped being the best player and started being the coach?" Her shift over 6 months: - Delegated strategically - Developed team capabilities - Led cross-functional initiatives - Focused on multiplying impact The result: Finally promoted to VP. This is much easier said, than done. While the specific actions are easy. Internal beliefs, patterns, habits, routine and skills are much harder to change. A step-by-step approach with proactive coaching every step of the way, Made this change possible. The uncomfortable truth I share with clients: If you're the hardest worker on your team, you might not be ready for executive leadership. Leaders create capacity. They don't just consume it. What's your experience with this transition? #Leadership #ExecutiveDevelopment #ManagementInsights #CareerGrowth

Some observations on ICs transitioning to managers during periods of rapid growth (we're going through this at Leland and I've seen it a few other times): When someone becomes a manager, their job shifts from maximizing their own output to maximizing their team's output. If they’ve done it well, their direct reports own specific outcomes and can execute without the manager's constant involvement. This is the hinge point that determines whether someone becomes a 10x manager or a worthless middle manager. 10x managers... - Keep their feet on the gas at all times - Zoom out to ensure the team is rowing in the right direction - Zoom in to make individuals more effective - Take on high-leverage projects that only they can do - Are a player-coach that is actively involved and fills in gaps where needed - Take full accountability for results, but help their team feel empowered to own their specific outputs - Build and lead winning teams Bad managers... - Slow their pace down because they believe their job is to delegate - Tell their teams to figure out what they should do with minimal support - Fill their time with meetings to feel busy - Confuse ownership of execution with ownership of results (they may not be executing, but they definitely still own the results) - Blame their team when things don't go well - Are above rolling up their sleeves and filling in when their team needs added bandwidth - Measure their success by the size of their team, not by the impact - Worry more about managing up than building a winning team Ultimately, these people become a worthless layer of management. And unfortunately, that layer can actually be 2-6 layers depending on the size of company. If you are a manager: DO NOT fall asleep at the wheel. You may not be executing directly on everything, but you are still responsible for the success of everything. Use your new capacity to increase team leverage and lead at a higher level. If you've navigated this transition or seen others navigate this transition well, I’d love to hear what you’ve seen work best.

Navigating workplace politics can be challenging, but there are strategies for avoiding entanglements and maintaining a neutral stance. Here are some practical tips to maintain peace and support your development as a neutral and impartial leader. 1. Focus on Your Work Prioritize Productivity: Concentrate on your tasks and responsibilities. High performance can speak louder than political manoeuvring. Set Clear Goals: Keep your professional goals in mind, and let them guide your actions and decisions. 2. Maintain Professionalism Stay Objective: Make decisions based on facts and data rather than personal opinions or alliances. Avoid Gossip: Refrain from engaging in or spreading workplace gossip. It's a primary source of political tension. Be Fair and Consistent: Treat all colleagues with the same level of respect and fairness, regardless of their position or personal feelings toward them. 3. Build Positive Relationships Network Broadly: Build relationships across different departments and levels within the organization. This reduces the appearance of favouritism and broadens your support network. Show Respect: Respect diverse perspectives and avoid taking sides in conflicts or disputes. Communicate Clearly: Be clear and transparent in your communications to avoid misunderstandings and misinterpretations. 4. Develop Emotional Intelligence Stay Calm. Control your emotions, especially in tense situations. This will help you remain neutral and rational. Listen Actively: Pay attention to others' viewpoints without immediately reacting. This demonstrates respect and can de-escalate potential conflicts. Empathy: Understand the emotions and motivations of others, which can help you navigate political situations with sensitivity. 5. Focus on Solutions Be Solution-Oriented: When conflicts arise, focus on finding solutions rather than assigning blame. This approach can help diffuse political tension. Collaborate: Encourage teamwork and collaboration to achieve common goals. This helps shift the focus from individual agendas to collective success. 6. Know When to Step Back Choose Your Battles: Not every issue is worth your time or energy. Focus on what matters most to your role and the organization's goals. Seek Guidance: If you're unsure how to handle a politically charged situation, seek advice from a trusted mentor or HR professional. 7. Protect Your Integrity Stand by Your Principles: Uphold your values and ethical standards, even if it means distancing yourself from certain situations or individuals. Be Transparent: Honesty and transparency in your actions and communications help build trust and minimize misunderstandings. #corporate #behaviours #politics #teams #oneteam #supportive

While working for a struggling organization presents obvious challenges, it can also create unique opportunities for career advancement that stable companies rarely offer. When you find yourself in a challenging workplace, consider these approaches to protect yourself while leveraging the situation: 1. Position yourself as a problem-solver: In organizations facing significant challenges, those who can navigate chaos and deliver solutions become invaluable. Take on the problems others avoid to demonstrate your capabilities. 2. Accelerate your skill development: Struggling companies often have gaps that allow you to take on responsibilities well beyond your current level. This compressed experience can accelerate your career timeline significantly. 3. Document your crisis management experience: Keep detailed records of how you've handled difficult situations, quantifying your impact wherever possible. These stories become powerful evidence of your capabilities in future interviews. 4. Establish boundaries to prevent burnout: While seizing opportunities, also protect your wellbeing by setting clear limits on your availability and workload. Your strategic value diminishes if you burn out. 5. Build a strong external network: Maintain active connections outside your organization as both professional insurance and to gain perspective on how others handle similar challenges. The professionals who thrive in difficult environments don't just survive chaos, they strategically leverage it to develop rare and valuable skills that distinguish them throughout their careers. What unexpected career growth have you experienced during challenging work situations? Check out my newsletter for more insights here: https://lnkd.in/ei_uQjju #executiverecruiter #eliterecruiter #jobmarket2025 #profoliosai #resume #jobstrategy #professionalcommunication #careerresilience #strategicopportunities

👩💼 Advice for new managers 👨💼 The hardest career transition for me was going from an individual contributor to a manager. Especially for high performing folks who transition to the manager role, switching gears from it being all about your own output to that of growing and scaling your team is a massive switch. Here's some traps I've seen... 😬 Trying to continue to do everything yourself - the common reaction for new managers is to just keep on taking on all the work and problems yourself. This gets old real fast - you burn out, your team gets pissed off, things start dropping. Your default question should be who on the team can take this on? 🙊 Making everyone do it the way you would do it - when delegating work, there's a reflex to tell everyone how exactly you'd do it. And maybe sometimes you already know how to get something done. That doesn't mean the people on your team need you to tell them how to solve a problem. Being open to letting people address challenges in their own way helps them grow, brings diversity of thought into the team, and frees you up for other work. 👺 Acting as the dreaded micromanager - new managers reflex is almost always to ask their team to report every little detail, join every meeting their team joins, set up meetings before the meetings to review presentations. The reason you have a team is so that you can scale. Trust your team members to do the right things, set up checkpoints along the way to help guide them, and then get out of their way. 🎤 Being the star of the show - as a manager, it's no longer about you. It's about your team. Making sure they get the space to present, be the decision makers, be the face of a project is critical for their growth and for your team's ability to scale. New managers often don't realize that if folks on your team do well, that's good for you as a manager - it doesn't take away from you! ❓ Not spending time coaching and talking career - having a supportive manager is critical to your career. Spending time with your reports learning about what they want to do in their career, coaching them by asking them lots of questions, and setting them up with the right opportunities is core to the job as a manager. It's so rewarding for me to coach new managers because I always remember how exhausting that first year felt for me. The thing I always tell people is to think about what they want (or don't want) in a manager and do that!

Tackling Crisis, Finding Your Own Way Out Crisis is inevitable. Whether it’s on the job site, in business, or in personal life, challenges arise that test our limits. But here’s the truth: no one else can rescue you from a crisis. You must take ownership, think creatively, and find solutions that work for you. Recently, I witnessed a powerful example of this mindset. Faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, instead of panicking or waiting for help, someone found another way around. It wasn’t the obvious path, but it worked—and it reminded me of some key strategies for navigating tough situations: 1. Accept Reality The first step to overcoming a crisis is acknowledging it. Denial wastes time and energy. Accept what’s happening and shift your focus to what can be done. 2. Think Creatively Standard solutions don’t always apply in extraordinary situations. Think outside the box. Ask yourself: Is there another resource I can use? Can I reframe this challenge as an opportunity? What haven’t I tried yet? 3. Take Responsibility No one else can own your crisis like you can. It’s your challenge, and you’re best equipped to tackle it. Don’t wait for rescue—start taking action, no matter how small the steps. 4. Leverage Your Network While the responsibility is yours, collaboration is invaluable. Reach out to trusted teammates, mentors, or peers for ideas. A fresh perspective can unlock solutions you hadn’t considered. 5. Adapt and Overcome Sometimes the path forward isn’t a straight line. It might mean going around, over, or under the problem. The key is to stay adaptable, resilient, and focused on the goal. The Hard Truth No one can save you from a crisis, but you can save yourself. Whether it’s finding an unconventional solution, changing your mindset, or rallying the right resources, the power to move forward is in your hands. Crisis is not the end, it’s a challenge to grow stronger, think smarter, and emerge better. Remember, it’s not just about finding one way out; sometimes, it’s about finding another way around.

I’ve watched strong individual contributors step into management and work harder than they ever have. And yet, the team still stalls. Effort was never the issue. As an individual contributor, success meant staying close to the work - fixing things directly, moving fast, and owning outcomes end to end. That’s what the role rewarded. That’s what got them promoted. But in a leadership role, the work changes completely: ⤷ Clarity has to be created for others ⤷ Judgment has to be built inside the team ⤷ Outcomes have to happen through people, not through you Most new managers aren’t prepared for this shift. So they default to what made them successful before. Six months in, the team slows down, decisions get delayed, and ownership never really moves beyond the manager’s desk. Here’s what organizations need to do differently: ⤷ Assess behavioral readiness before promotion Can this person delegate without stepping in? Influence without authority? Sit with ambiguity without rushing to solve it themselves? ⤷ Create leadership exposure before the title Difficult conversations, team conflicts, and unclear decisions - this is where leadership capability is actually built. ⤷ Support the first months intentionally Early patterns become permanent. Leaving new managers to “figure it out” is where most transitions fail. The shift from doing to leading isn’t automatic. It requires deliberate preparation. Organizations that build this in early stop promoting capable people into roles they struggle to grow into. PS: What’s one thing you wish someone had told you before your first leadership role? #LeadershipDevelopment #PeopleManagement #CareerGrowth #FirstTimeManager #LeadershipTransition

My biggest mistake when I moved from IC to Manager: thinking I could continue operating as an individual contributor. I thought I could: - have my own projects - be a "hands-off" manager - drastically improve my technical skills - not integrate with multiple stakeholders I was a *Shadow Manager*, a manager in title but not in reality. It took me years to get past this mindset. Now I know that the IC-to-Manager pivot requires major shifts. You're shifting into a brand new job and requires you to operate differently. Yes, your technical acumen is still important, but your core skills change. - writing SQL -> writing documents - building models -> building relationships - debugging code -> debugging process failures The earlier you make the shifts, the earlier you'll be successful as a leader.

One in four managers would prefer not to be people managers at all. Why the reluctance? Many of these managers found themselves in the role without knowing much about it beforehand, with less than a third reporting exposure to simulations, mentorship, or opportunities to gauge whether they were suited to becoming a manager. Promotion to management isn’t a reward for being a great individual contributor. It’s a career shift to an entirely different craft. You lose your best doer and often gain a reluctant, under-equipped leader. Individual excellence runs on personal output, autonomy, and execution. Management runs on enabling the output, growth, and morale of others. The skills rarely overlap automatically. Before promoting, look for evidence of the actual job: • Does the person read emotional undercurrents and respond with steadiness rather than judgment? • Do they listen to understand instead of to win the point? • Are they already quietly helping colleagues level up without being asked? Leadership is not a trophy handed out for past performance. It’s a separate profession. Treat it as one, and you stop creating accidental managers—and start building teams that actually work. Source: Harvard Business Review